While North America had Tyranosauraus Rex, South America had the Giganotosaurus and Africa the Spinosaurus, the palaeontologist, Dr Anthony Romilio and his team from the University of Queensland had been trying to get the evidence for the existence of predatory dinosaurs in Australia and had finally found them right in Queensland.
They analysed the footprint fossil and found that it dated back to the latter part of the Jurassic Period, between 165 and 151 million years ago. Rather than taking the fossilised bones, these researchers took the footprints of the dinosaurs as the specimen which helped them find that they belong to theropods, the same group of dinosaurs that includes Australovenator, Velociraptor, and their modern-day descendants, birds.
false-colour depth map). Credit Dr Anthony Romilio.
Also, these tracks were made by the dinosaurs while walking through the swamp forests that once occupied much of the landscape of what is now Southern Queensland. Most of these footprints are around 50 to 60 centimetres in length, with some of the really huge tracks measuring nearly 80 centimetres, stated Anthony Romilio.
He also stated that the tracks were made by large-bodied carnivorous dinosaurs, some of which were up to three metres high at the hips and probably around 10 metres long. The Queensland tracks were made by giant carnosaurs — the group that includes the Allosaurus, probably some of the largest predatory dinosaurs on the planet back then.
Queensland Museum.
The study had helped in providing some insights into Australia’s natural heritage. Yet, the fossils are not a recent discovery. These tracks have been known for more than half a century. They were discovered in the ceilings of underground coal mines from Rosewood near Ipswich, and Oakey just north of Toowoomba, back in the 1950s and 1960s. Most of these hadn’t been described scientifically and were left for decades to be re-discovered. Finding these fossils has helped the researchers to track down the creatures from Australia’s Jurassic Park.
Images Provided By Dr Anthony Romilio, Research Associate, UQ’s Dinosaur Lab
Reference: University of Queensland
Read another article about the discovery by Dr Anthony Romilio and his team
– “Ancient crocodiles walked like dinosaurs?”
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